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Data Elements: 3.917 Prior Living Situation
Data Element
To identify the type of living situation and length of stay in that situation immediately prior to project start for all adults and the Head of Household.
The element has been constructed to avoid collecting information which is irrelevant or inappropriate for the client population being served in a particular situation by splitting the element into 3.917A and 3.917B. *3.917A is applicable only to Emergency Shelter, Street Outreach, and Safe Haven project types. 3.917B is applicable to all other HMIS project types. For example, eligibility for Homelessness Prevention requires that a client be in housing. By definition, a person in housing is not experiencing chronic homelessness at that point in time, so some of the fields in this data element used to determine whether a person is experiencing chronic homelessness are not applicable in that situation.
This data element has conditional logic in HMIS to direct a user through the data collection process. Here are resources that address what should be collected and when it should be collected.
- Data Collection: How to Collect Prior Living Situation Information
- How to Record Prior Living Situation
Data Element Type
3.917 Prior Living Situation is a HUD Universal Data Element that is collected by all project types.
Collection Point
Collected at the Project Start for all Head of Household and Adults
Why it matters
This data element is used with other information to identify whether a client appears to meet the criteria for experiencing chronic homelessness at various points of enrollment (i.e., at the point of project entry, at a point during a project enrollment, or at any point over the course of a specified reporting period).
Data Quality
How to correct: Reporting: Data Quality – How to Correct Prior Living Situation Errors